Diane Gwynne-Smith writes about the project, which she managed, to create the most comprehensive and freely available online database of materials on social care. It can be found at: www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk

Anne Coles describes the process of becoming a chartered member of CILIP and considers whether it is relevant to the corporate information sector. She concludes that the skills it encompasses are all vital.

David Byrne - Head of Information at BT Legal - explains that within the commercial, legal and regulatory division of BT, their approach to knowledge management is to introduce cultural change whereby knowledge capture and re-use are subordinate to the prime goals of revenue generation and competitiveness. He discusses the innovative methods used for building effective knowledge-sharing relationships including using the “best of the rest”; ensuring that the right technology is in place; measuring value; collaboration and creating the “Sticky Organisation”.

This article by James Mullan looks at a number of different tools for gathering metrics, discusses developing information services using these tools and emphasises their importance as a management tool in recessionary times.

This article by Maria Mawson, Natasha Semmens and Mark Taylor, is based on a paper given at the 38th BIALL Annual Study Conference held in Sheffield in June 2007 and describes a new partnership between colleagues from the Library and the School of Law at the University of Sheffield, which has led to the development of an innovative new undergraduate foundation module in law. It begins by describing the situation which existed before the project. Next, two key changes which provided the impetus for the new collaboration are described. Finally, key elements of the new foundation module are discussed.

This article by Rob Martin addresses the issue of effectively managing the searching of enterprise information systems in law firms. It discusses the relative merits of federated, enterprise and integrated search and includes a case study of the combined solution adopted by City law firm, Ashurst.

Three years ago James Mullan delivered a presentation called “Emerging technologies” and followed this up with an article in Legal Information Management (LIM) called “Making mountains out of molehills: a look at some emerging technologies”1 Two years further on and the Editor of LIM asked him to re-visit the issues and to write a follow-up article on the subject. As a result this paper looks at the current state of play with those technologies and identifies some of the significant technological developments to have taken place since his original article.

This article by Katy Davies explores the subject of resilience and why it is so important. It offers suggestions on how to change your mind-set to be less phased by the challenges of everyday life at work and home. It is based on a presentation delivered at the BIALL Annual Conference in 2019.

This article, written by Katherine Read, gives an introduction to printed and electronic German legal resources that are collected by the Library of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and including those that are accessible through the web. Particular attention is given to English language sources where they are available to library users.

In the article, Jennefer Aston reflects on the involvement in BIALL of law librarians from Ireland. She writes about the development of the BIALL Irish Group, some of the challenges that Irish law librarians have faced, notes how the legal sector in Ireland grew in the 1980s and 1990s and describes the collaboration and the activities of law librarians in Ireland. She also invites former Chair of the Association, John Furlong, and current President, Renate ní Uigín, to give some thoughts too.

In this article Loyita Worley describes the relationships between the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) and its fellow organisations around the world. She looks at the way that BIALL has promoted law librarianship internationally and mentions some of the activities of the Association including its recent project work in Sierra Leone, as well as noting a few reminiscences along the way.

Tania Schriwer, a lawyer who is retraining as a law librarian, describes a three-week visit from her home library school at the University of Washington in Seattle to the IALS.

In this very practical checklist Michael Oberwarth identifies the key tasks to be undertaken when starting a law firm library from scratch. He then suggests strategies for setting up an information service which will add value to the fee earners.

Is Google a substitute for using known, authoritative websites for cases, legislation and other official information? Ian Hunter writes about the test searches that he carried out on Google and discusses the results he noted. In this exercise, consideration is given to whether the websites retrieved are authoritative and also attention is paid to Google's ranking of results.

Welcome to the summer issue of Legal Information Management (LIM) which celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL). Back in 1999, on Friday 16th April 1999 to be precise, a BIALL Council meeting took place that was held at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London. The minutes of that meeting record that,

Kay Munro, Senior Assistant Librarian at Glasgow University Library, writes about the courses offered by the Faculty of Law at Glasgow, the law library's collections and the services offered to students.

Graduate traineeships are an excellent way for people to enter into a career in libraries, providing a vast range of relevant experience. In the following article, last year's Graduate Trainee at Lincoln's Inn Library Natalie Kent, describes her experience as a trainee in law, outlining her background, role, training and visits, and reflects on the profession more widely.

Elaine Bird, the current Librarian of the Signet Library, describes the history and current activities of this library which forms part of one of the world's oldest legal professional bodies

Beginning in the early 1800s, New York has followed a comprehensive model of law-reporting with official law reports. This article by Charles Dewey Cole, Jr. looks at the influence of James Kent in establishing comprehensive law-reporting in New York, reviews the 1938 legislation that created the law reporting bureau and charged the state reporter with reporting almost all appellate court and selective trial court decisions, describes the state reporter's current publication practices and considers both the advantages of and the challenges presented by comprehensive official law-reporting. The article is based on a June 2019 presentation given at the annual conference of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians in Bournemouth.

This article by Rebecca O'Rourke, Commissioning Editor, Humanities and Social Sciences Journals, Cambridge University Press discusses the results of the recent survey carried out by CUP on our behalf to see whether LIM is still relevant to our readers.