The 6th Willi Steiner Memorial Lecture was delivered by David Allen Green and took place on 8 June 2017 during the Annual Conference of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) which was held in Manchester. His talk concerned libraries and public policy with particular reference to Brexit. He addressed the issues of how a debate like Brexit can be better informed and to what extent reliable legal and policy information makes any difference. In essence, he looks at how good information can help shape Brexit. This article is a later write-up from David's speaking notes. The lecture was, coincidentally, given on the same day as the general election.

Goldsmiths, University of London, started teaching LLBs in Law in 2019/2020. Greg Bennett was hired in 2018 to be the subject librarian for law, and to stock the library before teaching commenced. In this article, based on his presentation at the BIALL Online Annual Conference in June 2021, the author will discuss his decision-making and selection processes regarding his choices about what to include, and what not to include in the collection.

In this article Aileen Johnson, Head of Knowledge at Charles Russell Speechlys, describes the process of creating a knowledge strategy for a law firm. Simon Heatley, a Knowledge Development Lawyer in Charles Russell Speechlys' Disputes team, comments on this at a practice area level. Although drafted from a law firm perspective, this process could be adapted and replicated in other organisations.

The Squire Law Library has designed and run a series of popular escape room-style events, aimed at masters and undergraduate law students. Intended to prompt students to explore the full range of legal resources available to them, the games typically challenge participants to open a locked safe: relying on legal databases, the library catalogue and print materials to decipher a six-digit combination. This article, based on Lizz Edwards-Waller's presentation at the BIALL (virtual) conference 2020, reflects on the practicalities of running and promoting code-breaking events within the library and considers the benefits of this style of event in addition to, or instead of, more traditional law library orientation tours.

This article, written by Lenka Geidt, gives detailed insight into Brexit projects undertaken by Middle Temple Library. The library specialises, among other areas, in European Union law. This article explains how members of the Inns of Court and librarians can benefit from these projects which focus on legislation, case law and the legal debate regarding the United Kingdom's referendum on European Union membership and Brexit.

This article, by Jonathan Sims, is based on a presentation given at the national training day on Law, Gender and Sexuality: Sources and Methods in Socio-Legal Research in May 2014, jointly sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, the Socio-Legal Studies Association and the British Library. The article identifies library collections and resources which, beyond the scope of typical law collections, might be useful for broadly socio-legal academic research on intersections between law, gender and sexuality.

The amount of physical space available is a vital issue for virtually all law libraries. In this article, Dunstan Speight, Library Manager at City law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP, presents the issues involved in reducing and retaining library materials, to help library managers present a sound business case for maintaining the collection they need. Dunstan's experience is that of a law firm librarian, but it is hoped that much of what follows will also be relevant to librarians in other sectors.

Jessica Sambrook tells about her experiences of not only working in the idyllic Cayman Islands but also having to avoid the forces of nature. She describes the sources of legal information in the Islands and provides an interesting historical view of how their legislation has developed from English law.

In this article Michael Maher writes about the declining print needs for law libraries within UK law firms in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The article begins by looking at the initial financial impact Covid-19 had across UK law firms. The second part of the article covers how home-working patterns have become the preferable option to working in the office. Finally, the author takes a change management approach, addressing what information professionals need to do to best manage and embed the change so as to continue to play a key part of the future, post-pandemic, law firm business.

Masoud Gerami, Managing Director of vLex Justis, and Aidan Hawes, Head of Commercial Development, discuss the development and launch of the new vLex Justis platform. They describe the process of making decisions behind the content and features available on the platform, and how these will be continually enhanced in the future. They also discuss the global circumstances the platform was launched within and share their goal of meeting customer needs in a future which will bring new ways of working.

Alissa Sputore from the Melbourne Law School describes the ground-breaking Law Research Service which the Law Library runs for its staff and students as part of an effort to improve the quality of research and publication in the Law School.

Dunstan Speight, of Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP, gives his recommendations for some essential reference desk titles.

I saw the ad for ‘Head Librarian’ at Central European University in Prague in July 1993 after I had stopped for coffee in a grotty service area on the M5, en route from the impossible job in Glasgow to the exciting job in Somerset (holding both of those down simultaneously was an interesting geographical challenge in itself…). Of course, I knew I had no chance at all, but applied anyway, and by some minor miracle they offered me the post.

Every night for ten nights last May, I returned to room 128 in the Westside YMCA (West 63rd Street, New York City – just off Central Park) armed with more behind the scenes insights, professional secrets and first hand accounts of US law library operation and management than one slim A5 notebook could hope to hold. I was fortunate to be in the United States on a two-week placement at Columbia University, visiting some of America's great law libraries – the law school libraries of Columbia itself, New York University and Yale University. Each morning, after orange juice, coffee and a toasted cream cheese bagel, I would head out with the commuters to join the subway at Columbus Circle – uptown for Columbia or downtown for NYU. Every evening I would admire the energy of the mostly silver-haired athletes in brightly coloured lycra returning to the Westside “Y” after numerous circuits of the Jackie “O” reservoir on the upper east side of Central Park. The park is 843 acres of creative space bounded by impressive hotels, apartment blocks and the streets of Harlem. In May it is in perpetual motion from dawn to dusk with joggers, roller-bladers and cyclists weaving their way around the trees, fountains and numerous statues. Indeed it appears to be a huge magic garden, complete with beautiful street lamps that seem to come from C.S. Lewis's Narnia – another world, like the City itself, at once familiar and fascinatingly different.

Following its General Election victory in 1997, the new Labour Government set out its plans for devolution in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The proposals for a National Assembly for Wales were outlined in A Voice for Wales, published as a White Paper in July 1997. A referendum on the proposals was held on 18 September and, as many people know, the result was very close, with the outcome not known until the very last result was declared. In the end, however, the people of Wales said “Yes” to the Assembly by a margin of just 0.6% – 50.3% voting in favour of the Assembly, with 49.7% rejecting the proposals.

This article by Sally Creissen offers a thorough guide to the processes involved in selecting a library management system, from the initial consideration of whether it is really necessary to the post-implementation stages.

This article takes the form of a short interview with George Woodman, Librarian at the Northern Ireland Assembly Library. The questions were posed by the LIM Editor. George was recently given Life Membership of BIALL and received the Wildy BIALL Law Librarian of the Year 2011 Award at the 2011 BIALL Annual Dinner in Newcastle. More significantly, George was awarded an MBE in HM The Queen's Birthday Honours 2010 in recognition of his services to the profession.

‘Transactional learning’ at its simplest means learning from doing transactions. When professionals learn they often do so, as Donald Schön reminds us, by learning from within transactions – ‘knowing-in-action’. By this Schön means that professionals solve problems by constructing for themselves a repertoire of precedents, images and remembered actions. Problems are not solved by using rules alone, but are framed or constructed according to the repertoire. Professionals try out solutions for fit, re-frame, feed back to themselves, try out other solutions. The result is what Schön calls ‘;reflection-in-action’. According to him, this is what produces the doctor's “feel’ for a specific diagnosis, or a lawyer's ‘feel’ for a case, (Schon 1983).

The Financial Services and Markets Department is one of 11 main departments at City law firm Travers Smith LLP. Shirley Lofthouse, Head of Information at Travers Smith, considers the work of the financial services lawyer and the resources needed to support the research requirements of the department.