For over 100 years colleges of higher and further education have played important roles in the education of library and information professionals. However, the last decade has seen some significant changes in both the structure of teaching departments and the types of courses they deliver. This paper, delivered by Martin De Saulles at the 39th Annual BIALL Conference held in Dublin in June 2008, outlines some of the pressures currently facing the library and information profession and describes how teaching departments have responded in terms of course developments.

In this, the second of two articles, Nadine Fathers looks at what information is available through the various legal online subscription databases in relation to pending appeal cases. Her first article was published in the Spring 2012 issue of LIM.1

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.

Gail Boelens discusses how library and research training is delivered in a large Australian law firm. She also considers some of the challenges involved, including dealing with multiple jurisdictions, databases using different operating platforms and having adequate resources to develop and deliver training.

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.

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.

In the United Kingdom the electoral roll or register is one of the most fundamental resources for accessing information about adult UK residents. Apart from the register itself, third parties have traditionally made use of the raw name and address data to provide members of the public or certain professions access to derived databases, data sets or re-packaged raw data.

In this second of a series of two articles, Daniel Bates considers some of the most popular online platforms which are available to host and promote audio and video content for purposes including knowledge-sharing, teaching, research dissemination, and profile-building.

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 article by Loyita Worley examines the potential effects of outsourcingknowledge management processes in law firms and discusses the impact it may haveon the firm, its information resources and the clients involved.

Peter Lake is the Managing Director of Sweet & Maxwell, a Thomson company. As part of our feature on law librarianship and legal information in the 21st Century, we arranged to interview him to ascertain his views both on the future of legal publishing and on how Sweet & Maxwell are faring in the early part of the century.

Derek Sturdy explains the importance of search engine optimisation for the legal information professional involved in the organisation's website in the Google era and suggests that the most important pieces of information are the title and the abstract. He also discusses the rise in automatic classification in the enterprise search context.

In the first in our series of very short articles devoted to practical library and information management issues, Dean Mason from Salans provides helpful advice on how to set up a business continuity plan for your information service.

This article by Adrian Howe is based on a presentation given at the ‘Sources and Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice Conference’ in November 2015, jointly sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Education and the Socio-Legal Studies Association. She begins by querying whether there are indeed distinct feminist methods in the social sciences. She outlines the impact of what she calls the ‘methodical revolution’ on the criminology discipline, Foucault's contribution and Foucauldian methodologies deployed in criminological and criminal justice research.

The team responsible for Legal Journals Index explain how journal articles are selected, indexed and loaded to this online legal information service provided by Sweet & Maxwell. They outline the history of LJI and discuss the criteria for determining which journals are included in the service; how the Articles team decides which articles will be indexed; the content of an LJI index entry; how an abstract is written; the use of the taxonomy; the full text journals service on Westlaw; and the work of the Document Delivery team.

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.

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.

Outsourcing is now a reality for the legal profession. Sarah Fahy from Allen & Overy LLP asks how we decide its relevance for know how. Key to deciding is an objective review of our current internal practices and an appreciation of the relationships and skills necessary for compiling successful know how. Establishing a productive partnership with an outsourcing company takes commitment and investment. Success is forged through a shared vision of success from an agreed starting point.

Ruth Bird considers how the facilities and services at the Bodleian Law Library will evolve in the 21st Century given its status as a member library of the Copyright Deposit Scheme, which means that whilst other libraries are shrinking their paper collections, it is still expanding them.

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.