Penny Bailey recounts the challenges she has met and dealt with in her unusual progression from a law librarian to running her own software company, Bailey Solutions.

Elisabeth Tooms has recently taken early retirement from Allen & Overy, one of our largest law firms, after many years of service there and she has been persuaded to look back and consider the most significant changes which have taken place in law firm information work over the last twenty years.

This article by Sue Westcott discusses some of the changes in government policy since the election of the Coalition Government and the implications of local decision making for public services. These changes in turn will change the type of sources that will be relevant to legal information work relating to public policy.

In this article Philip Chung, Andrew Mowbray, and Graham Greenleaf, the Co-Directors of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII), explain the need for an open source search engine which can search simultaneously over legal materials in European languages and also in Asian languages, particularly those that require a ‘double byte’ representation, and the difficulties this task presents. A solution is proposed; the ‘u16a’ modifications to AustLII's open source search engine (Sino) which is used by many legal information institutes. Two implementations of the Sino u16A approach, on the Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII), for English and Chinese, and on the Asian Legal Information Institute (AsianLII), for multiple Asian languages, are described. The implementations have been successful, though many challenges (discussed briefly) remain before this approach will provide a full multi-lingual search facility.

This article comes from Sue Woodman, the outgoing Chair of ALLA and brings us up to date with developments down under

This issue of LIM has a theme of Scottish legal information and David Hart the highly respected and long-standing (ex) Scottish law librarian, kindly agreed to talk to the Editor about his long career on law librarianship and his involvement with BIALL

This article developed from a talk delivered by the authors, Timonie Green and Diane Miller, at the BIALL Annual Conference in June 2018, whereby they looked at how the Library and Information Services in both of their firms have managed a move to agile working. Withers, at the time, were deep in preparations for the move, whilst Gowling WLG had been working agilely for some time. The hope is that by telling these stories, and talking about the issues encountered, some pointers and ideas can be given to other firms facing the challenge.

If Scotland votes ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ how will its relationship change with the remainder of the UK? A ‘yes’ vote will have huge financial, political and legal implications. This article, written by Candace Guite, considers the current role of the UK Supreme Court in Scotland, the recent conflict (to which the title alludes) and it reflects on Scotland's potential international status. The UK Government has argued that it would be regarded as the continuator state and an independent Scotland would be a successor state, and so, in the event of a ‘yes’ vote Scotland would have to re-apply for entry to the European Union and the United Nations. However, there are arguments to support the alternative option, that Scotland could be regarded as a co-equal successor state with England, and thus would retain EU and UN membership.

This paper, by Hector MacQueen, assesses the current state of Scots law and the Scottish legal system, arguing that as a small legal system which cannot be self-contained it is inevitably in a state of crisis, from which, however, it will not be rescued by Scotland becoming independent.* Whatever happens after the referendum concerning Scottish Independence on 18 September 2014, the law is in need of active legislative reform, possibly codification, while the courts must become more positive in the attraction of business rather than, as it sometimes seems, seeking to push it away. Mere defence of the status quo will end in disablement and defeat.

Emily Allbon recounts her experiences in integrating social networking tools into her work with law students and, in particular, how she has integrated them with her prize-winning portal – Lawbore. She also documents her use of personal response systems in her teaching sessions.

This article by Joe Kennedy of Baker & McKenzie. Wong & Leow in Singapore outlines the legal system in Singapore; explains the legislative process; discusses case reporting and gives guidance on how to find legal materials in both hard copy and online sources and both free and for fee.

This article, written by Ivo Vogel and Elisabeth Schrecklinger, deals with the efforts of German libraries to digitise historical legal sources and make them publicly available. Although the main focus is on two selected libraries, a general overview is included. Commercial products are not considered since their contents are likely to become increasingly less relevant due to German law libraries' own initiatives. More attention is paid to problems that have been identified during the implementation of digitisation projects such as the recording of full texts is highlighted. The retrieval of digitised legal materials and, eventually, the digitisation of historical legal gazettes or parliamentary literature is also discussed. This contribution focuses exclusively on the retrospective digitisation of historical legal materials.

Faced with a fragmentation of publishers' portfolios in Germany, the librarian Martina Kuth was interviewed about the challenges to grant a user-oriented library collection in a large commercial law firm like CMS Hasche Sigle.

This article by Stig Marthinsen describes the background to the establishment of the Caselex database and outlines how it is being currently developed and the plans for its future.

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.

Lesley Dingle, founder of the Eminent Scholars Archive, provides a further contribution based on interviews with Emeritus Professor John Anthony “Tony” Jolowicz, one of the great legal scholars at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College since 1952.

Philippa Smith gives a brief introduction to the records of the City of London livery companies held by the Manuscripts Section of Guildhall Library.

This article by Allie Lustigman gives recommendations for creating a knowledge business strategy. The steps outlined are based upon the premise of using a strategy to review the information service and formulate a clear plan for the future function, particularly in terms of expanding the service; however, they can be applied to differing types of strategies. The article looks at various methods in which a review can be carried out and then outlines the strategy document itself, summarising the different sections that make up the document. Additionally, this article looks into the uses and benefits of creating a business strategy for the information professional.