The Eversheds Communities project's aim is to put together an integrated online mix of Eversheds’ internal commentary and know-how, combin-ed with leading external commercial information content, and to make this combined service available to the firm's clients for an agreed fee.

I arrived in Glasgow on the Sunday afternoon with a week ahead of me discovering more about librarianship. How interesting was this likely to be?

Lesley Dingle, founder of the Eminent Scholars Archive at Cambridge, gives a further contribution in this occasional series concerning the lives of notable legal academics. On this occasion, the focus of her attention is Stroud Francis Charles (Toby) Milsom QC BA who retired from his chair of Professor of Law at the University of Cambridge in 2000 after a distinguished career as a legal historian at the universities of Oxford, London School of Economics and St John's College Cambridge. His academic life and contentious theories on the development of the Common Law at the end of the feudal system in England were discussed in a series of interviews at his home in 2009. At the core are aspects of his criticism of the conclusions of the nineteenth century historian Frederick William Maitland, upon which the teaching of the early legal history of England was largely based during much of the 20th century. Also included are insights into his research methods in deciphering the parchment Plea Rolls in the Public Records Office, and anecdotes relating to his tenure as Dean at New College Oxford (1956–64) as well as associations with the Selden Society: he was its Literary Director, and later President during its centenary in 1987. Professor Milsom also briefly talked of his memories of childhood during WWII and his inspirational studies as a student at the University of Pennsylvania (1947–48).

This paper is based on a parallel session at the BIALL Conference 2016 which was given by Helen Marshall and Kelly Taylor from Pinsent Masons. Pinsent Masons has a ground-breaking team of research analysts providing the firm with in-depth sector and market analysis. This innovative approach has benefits for Pinsent Masons and also for the research team. These include increased visibility within the firm and developing a role as a trusted adviser to the business. The team are drawn from a variety of backgrounds, including experienced law librarians. In this article, Kelly and Helen, who are both from a law librarian background, will explain Pinsents' unique approach to business and sector insight. The article covers how the team adds value to the firm and charts the development of our existing skillsets to meet this new challenge. The article also includes some practical insight into approaching business research and how to overcome common obstacles, notably the challenge in expanding our output from traditional legal research to more business and commercially aware pieces.

‘Embedded librarianship’ has been on the rise in the legal sector since the early 2000s, but what is it and why has it become so popular? This article, written by Peter Wilson and Cosmo Anderson, aims to open up the wider conversations around embedded librarianship through a combination of the authors' practical experience and original research of librarians in UK and Irish law firms.

“If the Information Society is to be both open and universal it should develop along the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They are, among others, the right to freedom of expression, free access to information, the right to education and the right to participate in cultural life.’ (UNESCO 2000)

In this article Cheryl Caballero, Erica Smith and Rosalind Guldner, members of the Ontario Legislative Assembly indexing team, describe the challenges of indexing legislative text and how they set about meeting them. A version of their article was originally published in The Indexer in June 2015*.

Sara Berry, Head of Information Sourcing at Clifford Chance, recounts her experiences of moving her library from the City of London to Canary Wharf – the article contains a useful checklist of items to consider.

The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 will be fully implemented by January 2005 having received Royal Assent in April 2002. The Act will introduce important new rights for all to access information held by Scottish public authorities. This article by John McNairney sets out the key provisions of the Act and the mechanisms supporting the delivery of open government in Scotland.

This is not intended to be a “how to do it” article as I am sure there are plenty of you out there who could do that, rather it is intended to be a description of the problems I ran into when attempting to complete a copyright audit form and to give you food for thought.

The following report outlines the activities and funding of academic law libraries in the UK and Ireland in the academic year 2001/2002. The figures have been taken from the results of a postal questionnaire undertaken by Information Services staff at Cardiff University on behalf of the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS).

An indexed and annotated copy of the Employment Rights Act 1996 as amended at 1st January 2000, including amendments made by the Employment Relations Act 1999, is included on the professional area of this Web site. DiscLaw Publishing Ltd provides e-LOAD (employment Law on a Disc). The subscription service includes CD-ROMs updated every six months plus a password to their Internet site, updated every three weeks with the latest employment law developments. The site also contains lots of free information based on an earlier issue of the CD.

Costs: Prices start from £5 plus VAT a day for the professional service (£190 plus VAT p.a.)

Contact DiscLaw Publishing Ltd 0870 751 8905 www.emplaw.co.uk

The title of the legislation commonly referred to as the USA PATRIOT Act is in fact an acronym: the full name of this 342-page act is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, passed on 26 October 2001. It amends more than 15 federal statutes covering criminal procedure, computer fraud and abuse, foreign intelligence, wiretapping and the privacy of student records. The USA PATRIOT legislation was introduced by Attorney-General John Ashcroft who sought to increase the powers to fight terrorism following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington DC. Some concern was expressed at the lack of public debate when the legislation was introduced: the Act was passed in around six weeks.

This paper by Ruth Frendo, which is based on her presentation given at the training day on ‘Socio-Legal Sources and Methods in International Law’ which was held at IALS on 25 November 2016, provides an overview of the history and development of the International Law Association and gives an account of the archives of the organisation that are held at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London.

Martin Jones of Advice Services Alliance describes a specialist classification scheme and thesaurus devised for use by the general public when searching for legal advice on free websites, and explains how it is implemented and maintained.

In 2016 BIALL published a Professional Skills Framework which describes the skills and experience which legal information professionals need to perform their role. The aim of the framework is act as a benchmarking tool for personal professional development and to assist managers with appraisal and recruitment processes.

Ruth O'Flaherty briefly discusses the provision of library and research services in the Office of the Attorney General.

Amanda McKenzie from Olswangs presented a paper at the BIALL Annual Conference 2010 on the potential impact of the reforms contained in the Legal Services Act 2007.

The basic resource is the Lord Chancellor's Department with the full text of the CPR, practice directions, schedules and pre-action protocols available in Word, pdf and html formats. The major advantage of this resource is its currency, with updated versions appearing here first. The opening page provides clear information on the latest changes and when they come into force. Consultation papers on civil matters are also provided in full.