INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the winter 2019 issue of Legal Information Management (LIM). We complete 2019 and the fiftieth anniversary year of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) by first remembering Donald ‘Don’ Daintree, a founder member of BIALL. Don passed away earlier in 2019 and it is appropriate for us to reflect on his influence and involvement with the establishment of BIALL as we bring to a close the anniversary year. Don's impact, as one of the driving forces in the creation of the Association and his interest in the education and training of law librarians, continues to resonate with us today. Don's contribution was particularly significant. He was the first Chair of BIALL and was ‘in post’ from 1969 until 1975; the longest term served by anyone in that office. As part of the obituary that begins this issue of LIM, Robert Logan, Christine Miskin and Barbara Tearle recall their personal memories of Don.
THE WILLI STEINER MEMORIAL LECTURE 2019
With BIALL enjoying its fiftieth year in 2019 there was much anticipation and excitement around the keynote speech at the BIALL Annual Conference that took place for Friday 14 June 2019. The Association was honoured that Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond, DBE, the President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, had agreed to deliver the lecture and, as a result, the conference attendees, including delegates, exhibitors and sponsors, filled the main auditorium, Tregonwell Hall at the Bournemouth International Centre. The occasion was a resounding success and the lecture was eloquently introduced by the BIALL President, Dunstan Speight. Lady Hale did not disappoint and delivered an excellent and stimulating lecture reflecting on The changing legal landscape. The lecture was also the Willi Steiner Memorial Lecture, the seventh in the series, and it reflected upon some of the major developments in the law, and issues relating access to justice, since Lady Hale had been an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge. It was appropriate, too, that Lady Hale remembered Willi Steiner, a founder member of BIALL, from her days studying in the Squire Law Library. This was a memorable occasion, and for those BIALL members unable to attend I am delighted that we are able to feature this lecture in print here in the Association's journal.
SELECTION OF PAPERS FROM THE BIALL CONFERENCE 2019
Some of the other papers that were delivered at the conference follow in this issue. The overall theme of the conference was ‘BIALL - 50 not out: past, present and future’ which left plenty of scope to interpret the brief. Our first item in this section is a joint contribution based on a parallel session delivered by Paul Macgrath and Charles Dewey Cole, Jr. They reflect on Law reporting and public access in the courts with Paul looking at the English experience and Dewey taking a perspective from New York.
Sue Shreeve and Julie Hamley write from the academic perspective and give their Reflections on the evolving role of subject support librarians at UWE (University of the West of England) Bristol. Turning towards the commercial sector, Ann-Christin Karlén Gramming, Elisabeth Ejemyr and Elin Thunell bring their experiences from the Swedish law firm, Vinge and describe their approach to Implementing nano-learning in the law firm. Sophie Thompson, of Osborne Clarke LLP, writes about Designing client-centred knowledge services. Finally, Katy Davies, of Howard Kennedy, focuses on resilience and her piece is entitled I want to give up! building resilience and changing your mind-set.
I am extremely grateful to all our contributors and hope to be able to publish in the spring 2020 issue of LIM a number of other articles based on presentations given at the BIALL Conference 2019.
CURRENT AWARENESS
As usual, the current awareness section is provided by Katherine Read and Laura Griffiths of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Library and I am very grateful to them for that.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to give my thanks to the LIM Editorial Board with particular reference to Sinéad Curtin (Chair of the Board) and the team of proof-readers for their considerable help. I am also grateful to our publishers, Cambridge University Press (CUP), and especially Hannah Patrick (Commissioning Editor, Humanities and Social Science Journals, CUP) and Craig Baxter (Production Editor, Journals at CUP). I make particular reference to Hannah who is moving to a new position at CUP. I wish to express our thanks to her for her expert advice and help especially at LIM Editorial Board meetings.
