This article by Dr Anthony Smith describes how the British Records Association can help legal information professionals and the legal profession generally to conserve old legal records of both law firms themselves and of their clients. He also describes the activities and publications of the Association.

Because the focus of most of the themed articles in this issue of LIM is vendor relations from the point of view of the customer, it seemed sensible to allow the legal publishers to present their own views of relations with their customers to the readership, via a short survey carried out by BIALL's Legal Information Group.

Alison Johnson reviews Eversheds' approach to delivering legal research training and the development of an effective training module which was first delivered in 2002 and has recently had its first cohort moving into qualification and the workplace as fully trained lawyers.

In June 2010 the first BIALL Supplier of the Year award was made to Wildy & Sons Ltd, following a survey of BIALL members. The chair of the Awards and Bursaries Committee at the time of the award was Susan Scorey. Some time after the event she talked to John Sinkins, Managing Director of Wildy's, about the award and customer relations more generally.

This article by Rachel Brett highlights the key issues to be aware of when carrying out international company searches and reviews the information available online from the national company registries for some of the key European and offshore jurisdictions including: Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands.

Ufuoma Lamikanra and Dr T. O. Dada visited the IALS library in March 2010 to study the running of a large academic library with a view to trying to modernise procedures in the Nigerian Institute's library.

Conor Kennedy provides an overview of the Law Reform Commission's Library & Information Service

This piece, by Celine Kelly, is a report on a paper that was presented at the JSI 2013 in Melbourne and explores the key points made by Andrew Godwin on the globalisation and liberalisation of legal services in the Australasia region. The talk included a discussion on the pros and cons of globalisation and case studies of legal services in South Korea, Singapore, Japan, China, India and Australia.

my hypothesis on the thinking behind this list is that libraries are organisations which are dynamic self evolving complex systems and so i have applied the simple systems theory template to how to merge two libraries. i think the key thing to remember is that systems cannot change radically or quickly and that they depend on feed-back to adjust their equilibrium. that said it follows that any merger, with its implications of big rapid change, will be difficult for any library system. it will be essential to keep open channels of communication and feed-back both within the immediate environment (the law firms themselves) and the external environment (publishers, service providers, journal subscriptions)

Carl Clayton, Director, SINTO - the information partnership, writes that there is no shortage of legal information, yet for some people it can still be difficult to get access to the legal information they may need as citizens. Libraries in the Sheffield area have a strong history of co-operation but this cannot remove all the barriers.

Hester Swift, Foreign and International Law Librarian, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, and Peter Clinch, Senior Subject Librarian for Law, Cardiff University delivered this paper at the recent BIALL Annual Conference.

This checklist should be read in conjunction with the authors' article at page 20 of this issue, and includes points to consider which have come out of their experiences in delivering training.

It is apt to start this review about the 2000s by mentioning ‘a project called UKILELI…it aims to create a database of UK full-text legislation and case transcripts; available via the web. More critically it aims to be free.’ It was later renamed to the more easily pronounced BAILII. BIALL had voted to support the project with a donation and to encourage law libraries to do the same.

Paper presented by Gerry Power at the 37th BIALL Annual Study Conference in Brighton, June 2006, outlining the importance of lifelong learning; discussing the work of some prominent writers and suggesting how to surmount barriers to learning.

The need to monitor competitor activity and anticipate competitive actions is a standard activity for most businesses. In order to succeed and grow, firms need to understand what rival firms are doing, and furthermore what is happening in the overall business environment. However unlike a manufacturing company, or a high-street retailer, or indeed many other businesses, obtaining intelligence on competitors is not so easy for professional service firms.

This article is written by Clare Cowling, Director, Legal Records at Risk Project, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London. Her article explores the hypothesis that modern private sector legal records are more at risk of loss than their historical equivalents. There are many reasons for this, but one factor, detailed in this article, appears to be the indifference or reluctance of legal practitioners themselves. The LRAR project seeks to allay any concerns practitioners may have about confidentiality and to raise their awareness of the potential commercial and historic value of their legal records. It will do this by a combination of case studies, interviews with stakeholders and investigations into the current information management and archiving practices of institutions specialised to law. In so doing it will provide guidance and advice on the more cost-effective management and preservation of legal records so that the history of change to non-governmental legal services in the UK over the past century will be accurately documented.

The index has been a key feature of the International Law Reports (ILR) since their inception in 1919. Apart from the individual volume indexes there have been five consolidated versions, each helping, by bringing related material together, to cast the jurisprudence in a new light. A sixth consolidation is in progress, running from Volumes 1–150. Maureen McGlashan, the indexer, describes the principles underlying the ILR indexing process and asks whether, with the Reports now available online at Justis, the index is any longer necessary. She also considers the role of the ancillary apparatus such as the Tables of Cases and Treaties.

This short piece makes reference to an event that was held in May 2019 at the London School of Economics. The occasion was entitled ‘Oral History Research: Illuminating the Past’. There were three speakers and the session was chaired by Professor Michael Lobban. One of the speakers that evening was Lesley Dingle and, following this introduction, her talk is featured in this issue of Legal Information Management.

The internet and the World Wide Web (www) has allowed the free flow of information across countries. Peter Martin and Tom Bruce from Cornell Law School pioneered the development of the ‘Free Access to Law Movement’ around the world. The Australian Legal Information Institute and various other Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) were established by adopting the Montreal Declaration at the Law via Internet Conference held in 2002. As a member of the United Nations, India adopted the UNESCO policy guidelines for the development and promotion of governmental public domain information. In India, the National Informatics Centre has played a leading role in supporting the maintenance and dissemination of Indian government public information that is useful for legal education, research and practice. This paper by Priya Rai, and Akash, gives a brief informative overview of the ‘free access to law movement’ resources pertaining to India. These resources have been categorised for easier understanding: parliamentary resources, legislative resources, case laws, law reform reports, international treaties and legal scholarship and journals. The article also provides an overview of the Legal Information Institute of India extending its contribution to disseminating Indian legal information.