SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS

• • The response rate was 83.78%; very good, and near the record of 85.4% (section 3);

• • There was a marked increase in universities enrolling PhD and MPhil students, with 100% of old universities and 80% of new universities enrolling these type of students (section 5);

• • 20% of respondents failed to meet the SLS Statement of Standards 3.1 on space and physical facilities, through not housing all relevant collections in one place (section 6);

• • The three most popular law databases in terms of number of subscriptions continued to be Westlaw UK, Lexis^®Library and HeinOnline. But there was still some fluidity in the range of subscriptions held, for 10% of respondents were considering cancelling a subscription to an electronic source before the end of July 2016 whilst 8% were considering a new subscription before the same date (section 7);

• • JSTOR was still the most widely used general database in law libraries (section 8);

• • Nexis UK and Proquest continued to be the two most widely subscribed to newspaper databases which are used to contribute significantly to teaching and research in law schools (section 8);

• • The most popular free website with legal content which assists teaching staff and students in their law studies and which they access frequently was BAILII or the British and Irish Legal Information Institute at www.bailii.org/ which is based at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (section 9);

• • Ex Libris (offering products such as Alma, Aleph and Voyager) was the most popular supplier of library management systems to academic law libraries in the UK and Ireland (section 10);

• • Mean expenditure on law materials decreased by 1.02% across all respondents on the level in 2014. Old universities reported a 4.2% decrease in mean expenditure on 2014, whilst new universities reported a 0.44% decrease in mean expenditure on 2014 (section 11.1);

• • This year the mean spend per student at old universities has overtaken the mean spend per student at new universities. Mean law materials expenditure per student in old universities was £251, whereas in new universities it was £250. The trend in this area is therefore of a narrowing gap between sectors (section 11.1);

• • The proportion of total law material expenditure on monographs remained the same at 22%, serials continued its downward trend to its lowest ever percentage of 40% and databases increased to 38% (section 11);

• • Separate results on overall expenditure on law library materials in institutions not providing vocational or professional award courses are provided (section 11.7);

• • The highest proportion of income to fund the acquisition of law materials continued to come from general library funds (section 12);

• • 60% of all law schools made no contribution at all to funding the acquisition of law materials. However, of those law schools that did contribute, they appeared to do so more generously with the mean amount contributed by law schools increasing by 55% on last year (section 12);

• • The same percentage (14%) of responding libraries did not have any library staff which spent 50% or more of their working time on the care and servicing of the law collection. Several explained that their activities were being diluted into library-wide responsibilities or the law collection was being serviced from a team of staff with wider subject duties (section 13);

• • Overall average staffing numbers slightly decreased in old universities to 3.45 FTE and slightly decreased in new universities to 2.25 FTE (section 13);

• • 86% of respondents had at least one member of law library staff who had a LIS qualification, although for 20 institutions this was less than one full-time member of staff (section 13.4);

• • As found in previous surveys, library staff with law qualifications were much more common in old universities (section 13.4);

• • Law librarians in almost all responding institutions continued to be involved in providing legal research skills training. Most often it was in partnership with law school lecturers and in over half of the institutions in a programme involving free external trainers supplied by the major database providers (section 14.1);

• • Librarians were involved in training for all types of course though not all their contributions were integrated with the law teaching curriculum (section 14.3);

• • In general, the average amount of teaching received by a postgraduate professional, a taught postgraduate and research postgraduate has decreased. However, a slight increase in the average amount of teaching is noted for undergraduates (section 14.4);

• • On most measures librarians in both old and new universities appear to be spending slightly less time teaching than previously (section 14.5);

• • As in the six previous surveys, face-to-face contact through IT or database workshops is still the most popular delivery method (section 14.6);

• • The overall number of institutions integrating information literacy principles within the law undergraduate programme decreased (section 14.7);

• • A growing minority of responding institutions had links with overseas institutions and a wide variety of types of support were reported, ranging from email support to overseas students in finding resources to the purchase and shipping out of new print materials (section 15);

• • The most popular other activities in both old and new universities continue to be, firstly, creating web subject and research guides, followed by providing content for law library web pages, providing content for social networking sites and providing content for web portals or gateways. Writing published articles continues to be the least popular other activity (section 16).

3. RESPONSE RATES

This year 93 forms were returned from 111 libraries representing a response rate of 83.78%, an increase on last year's 81.98% and still close to the record of 85.4%, set in 2003/2004. I am grateful to all those law librarians who took the time to respond. Another response rate of over 80% is very welcome and should permit the presentation of a reasonably accurate picture of academic law libraries in the UK and Ireland. A complete list of the academic law libraries that returned a completed 2014/2015 survey questionnaire is contained in the Appendix.

To help detect patterns in law library provision, the data has been analysed, as in previous years, by type of institution:

• • “old” universities incorporated before 1992

• • “new” universities incorporated in or after 1992

• • institutes of higher education and other types of institution

Forty-four old universities responded (45 last year), as did 46 new universities (43 last year) and 3 other institutions (3 last year). The response profile has therefore changed slightly, with one fewer results for old universities and three more results from new universities. This may affect comparisons with past results.

4. DEFINITIONS

In many of the following sections, the survey responses are analysed using range, mean and median.

• • The range indicates the smallest and the greatest value of the responses and helps us understand the diversity of responses.

• • The mean has been calculated by adding up all the responses and dividing by the number of responses to get an “average”. The mean can be distorted by one or two responses which are very large or very small.

• • The median is the mid point and is calculated through ordering the responses by size from the smallest to the greatest and finding the middle response. There will be an equal number of responses below the median and above the median and so it provides a benchmark of what a “typical” university is doing.

Percentages from this point onwards have generally been rounded to the nearest whole number.

5. STUDENT NUMBERS

A representation of the number of law students served by the libraries helps in understanding the framework in which provision is made and can assist librarians in comparing their provision with institutions of similar sizes.

Respondents were asked to indicate the total number of taught course students (bodies, not FTEs) in the Law School enrolled on exempting undergraduate law degrees or professional or academic postgraduate courses in law. Eighty seven out of the total of 93 respondents gave figures for student numbers, ranging from 50 to 7,639 (50 to 10,083 in 2014). The median number of law students was 637 (700 in 2014) and the mean number was 892 (955 in 2014), both figures therefore decreasing year-on-year.

Respondents in old universities reported student numbers between 50 and 1,800 (50 to 1,939 last year), with a mean of 852 (888 last year) and a median of 817 (900 last year).

In new universities, the range was 80 to 7,639 (81 to 10,083 last year), with a mean of 968 (1,095 last year) and a median of 521 (530 last year).

Among the 3 other institutions, the range was 70 to 192 (85 to 225 in 2014). The mean was 131 (143 in 2014) and the median was 131 (120 in 2014).

Mainly downward trends are evident in the number of students attending responding institutions in 2014/2015 as compared with the previous year. In particular the average number of students in both old and new universities have decreased.

Ninety-one or 98% of respondents (90 or 99% in 2014) offered an exempting undergraduate law degree. Twenty eight or 30% of respondents (28 or 31% in 2014) hosted the Legal Practice Course (LPC) or Bar Professional Training Course or Diploma in Professional Legal Practice (Scotland) or Professional Practice Course (Ireland) or Degree of Barrister-at-law (Ireland). This represents 23% of old university respondents, 40% of new universities and 0% of other institutions.

Twenty three or 25% (22 or 24% in 2014) of respondents provided courses leading to other law professional awards, such as the CPE or Chartered Institute of Legal Executives qualification. Twenty percent of old universities, 29% of new universities and 33% of other institutions ran such courses.

The final category was for other taught courses, such as the LLM, which led to a postgraduate award in law. Eighty four or 90% (83 or 91% in 2014) of institutions ran these postgraduate courses, including 98% of old and 91% of new universities and 0% other institutions. The movements in the percentages of respondents offering particular courses this year are very small and are probably mainly due to changes in the survey profile.

Respondents also indicated whether the law school enrolled students onto research courses, such as those leading to PhD and MPhil. Overall 80 or 86% (75 or 82% in 2014) of institutions indicated that they did. One hundred percent of old universities, 80% of new universities and 0% of other institutions had such students. Research students were not included in the count of law students detailed above. The percentage for old universities is back up to 100% and the trend is up markedly again for the new universities at 80% (72% in 2014 and 66% in 2013).

6. LOCATION OF THE LAW LIBRARY

Respondents were asked to indicate, from a list, which most closely matched the circumstances in their institution.

Graph 1:

Location of the law library.

As the above pie chart demonstrates, across all respondents:

• • 23% had a single law library in a location separated from other subject collections (23% in 2014). Of these, there were 13 (2014: 16) old universities, 8 (2014: 4) new and zero (2014: 1) other institution.

• • 39% had a law collection not so separated but shelved so as to form a single identifiable unit (40% in 2014). These included 16 (2014: 16) old universities, 19 (2014: 18) new and 1 (2014: 2) other institutions.

• • 18% had several law collections each in a different location (15% in 2014). These included 6 (2014: 4) old, 11 (2014: 9) new universities and 0 (2014: 1) other institution.

• • 20% had a law collection dispersed wholly or partly among other subject collections (22% in 2014). Of these, 9 (2014: 9) were old universities, 8 (2014: 11) were new universities and 2 (2014: 0) other institutions.

Thirty percent (2014: 36%) of old universities responding had a single and separate law library, while 18% (2014: 10%) of new universities and zero (2014: 25%) of other institutions had a single and separate law library.

Thirty six percent (2014: 36%) of old universities described their law collection as being shelved so as to form a single identifiable unit but not separate from other collections. Forty one percent (2014: 43%) of new universities described their law collection in a similar way, and 33% (2014: 50%) of other responding institutions.

Fourteen percent (2014: 8%) of old universities had several law collections, each in a different location, but 24% (2014: 21%) of new universities and no other institutions (0%) reported several collections (2014: 1, 25%).

As in past surveys, the main reason for more than one law collection was the establishment of a separate library targeted at vocational course students, such as those on the LPC or BPT, in addition to a main law collection. Other respondents mentioned other reasons for separate locations; for example, one respondent mentioned that a small collection was needed in the central library to support longer opening hours.

The comments to the SLS Statement of Standards 3.1 (Society of Legal Scholars, 2009) on space and physical facilities require “the housing of all relevant collections … as a unified whole in one place …”. This year the figures suggest that this criterion was not met by at least the 20% of institutions reporting dispersed collections.

Twenty percent of old universities, 17% of new universities and 66.7% of other institutions had law collections wholly or partly dispersed among other subject collections. Last year the figure was 22% overall: in detail, in 2014, 20% of old, 26% of new and 0% of other institutions had dispersed collections.

Although the overall percentage trend of dispersed collections is down from 22% in 2014 to 20% in 2015, one must remember that the general response profile for different types of institution has altered a little between last year's and this year's surveys, so the actual institutions responding are different and are probably partly the reason for the downward changes noted.

7. LEGAL DATABASES

Contrary to the rest of the questionnaire, respondents were asked to indicate their legal database subscriptions at the present time, rather than in the year 2014/2015. The results below therefore show the position in February 2016.

As in recent years, all respondents gave details of subscription databases used in connection with the teaching and research work of the law school. The ten most frequently mentioned law databases are displayed in the graph below.

Graph 2:

Top 10 legal databases.

The law databases' academic market is still fluid but much less so than several years ago and generally very similar to last year. On a positive note, 8% of respondents (17% last year and 18% the year before that) were planning new subscriptions before the end of July 2016. However on the negative side, 10% (17% last year and 10% the year before that) noted planned or recent cancellations before the financial year end.

Like last year, a small number of law databases continue to dominate the market. According to the snapshot survey results using exactly the same survey questions format as in the previous year, in February 2016 Westlaw UK was taken by 93 respondents (100%) and Lexis^®Library was taken by 92 of respondents (99%). Last year Westlaw UK was also taken by 100% of respondents and Lexis^®Library was taken by 96%. HeinOnline, kept the third position it first gained in 2007 with an increased percentage, being taken by 77 or 83% of respondents (last year: 80%). Jordan's Family Law Online remained in fourth place with 68% (65% last year).

Of the other popular databases mentioned by respondents, Justcite moved up to fifth place with 41% of respondents (35% last year) and Lawtel UK dropped one place to sixth place with 39% (same percentage as last year). i-law remained in seventh place with 30% of respondents (28% last year) and the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law remained in eighth place with 28% of respondents (25% last year). IFLP remained in ninth place as last year with 16% of respondents and ILP remained in tenth place with 14% of respondents (13% last year).

Looking at the returns for Westlaw in more detail, no new subscriptions were planned although one respondent was considering cancellation due to lack of funds. Two respondents reported that they already subscribed to Westlaw China, three reported they subscribed to Westlaw e-books and one reported that they subscribed to IDS Brief.

Seventy one respondents or 76% subscribed to Westlaw International (81% last year). Six respondents subscribed to Westlaw IE (Irish Law). Two were based in the Irish Republic, one from Northern Ireland and the rest from the UK mainland.

Respondents were asked to indicate the subscriptions they took to particular parts of the Lexis^®Library product. Two respondents reported that they were planning new subscriptions (one to LexisLibrary Property and one to Lexis PSL), but one respondent reported that they were planning to cancel their subscription to Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents.

The Journals module, the UK cases module and the UK legislation module were the most popular products, all three taken by 89% of respondents. Halsbury's Laws was taken by 81% of respondents and UK newspapers on Lexis by 68%, whilst the International Materials module was taken by 65% of respondents. The Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents in electronic format was taken by 52%. 12 respondents or 13% took Lexis PSL.

31 respondents ticked “other Lexis^®Library products” in the survey questionnaire. However most did not specify specific products so it is difficult to give a safe popularity percentage split between the other Lexis^®Library products, other than to say that the following products were specifically mentioned by many respondents: Employment Law, Accountancy lite, Atkins Court Forms, Family, Tax, Academic Scotland Online, Tolleys, EU tracker, IP, Crime, Immigration, Lexis Australia, Lexis^®Library Ghana, Local Government, Property and Valentines on Northern Ireland law.

Two respondents stated that they subscribed to LexisNexis^®Juris Classeur and two respondents took Lexis Middle East Law as standalone products. Three respondents reported that they took the “Current Awareness” module.

HeinOnline retained its third position with an increased percentage, being taken by 77 or 83% of respondents (last year: 80%). However two respondents reported that they were planning to cancel their HeinOnLine subscriptions because they were “too expensive”.

Jordan's Family Law Online remained in fourth place with 63 respondents or 68% (59 or 65% last year). One respondent reported plans to subscribe to Jordan's before July 2016, but one respondent reported plans to cancel their subscription because the cost was too high relative to the low student numbers on the relevant course modules.

Justcite took fifth place with 41% of respondents (35% last year). In addition one respondent was planning to subscribe to Justcite before 31^st July 2016.

Lawtel UK took sixth place with 39% of respondents taking the database (39% last year). One respondent also reported “likely” plans to cancel their Lawtel UK subscription.

Other than the databases already discussed in detail, the following databases were mentioned by 10% or more respondents:

Databases cited by 3 or more respondents included Oxford Reports on International Law (8 respondents), OGEL – Oil, Gas and Energy Law and Casetrack (5 respondents each), Beck and Oxford Scholarship Online (4 respondents each) and Dalloz, ICLR Online, Kluwer International and WorldTradeLaw.net (3 respondents each).

In total 25 respondents (or 27%) subscribed to Justis products other than Justcite. Although not all respondents gave full details of their Justis subscriptions the following limited information was reported: 4 respondents subscribed to UK legislation, 3 respondents each subscribed to JUSTIS, “International”, Irish Reports and the Session cases archive, and 2 to the “Full academic package”, International law reports and England/Wales judgements. One respondent each subscribed to BLISS, Caribbean Law Reports, Parliament, Singapore Law Reports and Immigration.

Databases of European legal information continued to be casualties in the changing academic legal database market. Eurolaw was subscribed to by 1 respondent or 1% (2% last year).

The median number of legal database subscriptions taken in responding libraries in February 2016 was 7 (February 2015: 7). The numbers of legal databases offered by institutions ranged from 1 to 57 (2 to 49 last year).

8. OTHER DATABASES

In addition to law databases, law schools use a range of more general information databases such as the newspapers which are of relevance to students in a wide range of disciplines. Eighty four respondents (90%) noted other subscription databases which contribute significantly to the teaching and research work of their law school. This shows a one percentage decrease from the 91% recorded last year.

JSTOR was again the most widely used general database with 63 or 68% of respondents (2014: 69 or 76%). House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP) was mentioned by 60 or 65% of respondents (2014: 59 or 65%) and gained second place. Joint third was EBSCO Business Source and ISI Web of Science with 49 or 53%. Fifth was ASSIA with 28 or 30% (2014: 26 or 29%) and sixth was Criminal Justice Abstracts at 26 or 28% (2014: 20 or 22%). Next was EBSCO academic with 23 or 25% (2014: 25 or 28%). The following databases were used by fewer than 10% of respondents: SCOPUS and Sage (both used by 7 or 7.5% of respondents); Public Information Online (4 or 4% of respondents); and Xpert HR and Proquest dissertations and theses (both used by 3 or 3% of respondents). A further 40 non-law subscription databases were mentioned no more than twice.

By February 2016, 62 or 67% of respondents used a web-based combined newspaper database to access the full range of newspapers (2014: 60 or 66%), although not every respondent specified a particular database and many respondents subscribed to more than one database. Taking into account all those respondents who did specify particular databases, the top two suppliers were again Nexis UK used by 35 respondents (2014: 24) and Proquest with 18 respondents (2014: 14). Factiva and Gale NewsVault were both taken by 6 respondents each (2014: Factiva had 6 and Gale NewsVault had 4). Gale Infotrack was taken by 3 respondents (3 last year). Newsbank and UK Press Online were both taken by 2 respondents (2014: Newsbank had 3 and UK Press Online had 1). The following databases were mentioned once a piece: Academic Onefile; Access World News; allafrica.com; British newspapers archive; Company Dossier; International newsstand; JISC FE custom news; State papers. The results for this year indicate the continued popularity of Nexis UK and Proquest. Otherwise the results show only slight changes in the subscriber newspaper databases used to contribute significantly to teaching and research in the law school.

9. MOST POPULAR FREE WEBSITES WITH LEGAL CONTENT

For the second time we asked respondents to list, to the best of their knowledge, the names of up to three free websites / databases with legal content which assist teaching staff and students in their law studies and which they access frequently. General search engines such as Google were excluded. The ten most frequently mentioned free websites / databases with legal content are displayed in the graph below.

Graph 3:

Top 10 free websites / databases with legal content.

Eighty one or 87% of respondents provided this information, although not all respondents listed three sites. The top ten sites are listed below in descending order of popularity:

• 1. BAILII or the British and Irish Legal Information Institute at www.bailii.org/ which is based at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London.

  [65 or 70% of respondents]

• 2. www.legislation.gov.uk/

  [29 or 31%]

• 3. EUR-Lex at www.eur-lex.europa.eu/

  [23 or 25%]

• 4. Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations at www.legalabbrevs.cardiff.ac.uk/

  [16 or 17%]

• = 5. www.parliament.uk

  [10 or 11%]

• = 5. WorldLII or World Legal Information Institute at www.worldlii.org/

  [10 or 11%]

• 7. EUROPA – EU website at www.europa.eu/

  [7 or 8%]

• 8. HUDOC – European Court of Human Rights at www.hudoc.echr.coe.int

  [5 or 5%]

• = 9. City University's Lawbore at http://lawbore.net/

  [4 or 4%]

• = 9. OSCOLA at https:// www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/publications/oscola

  [4 or 4%]

The following free websites were mentioned by 3 or 2 respondents:

1. 1. Hansard at https://hansard.parliament.uk/ – 3 or 3.2%

2. 2. AUSTLII: the Australasian Legal Information Institute at http://www.austlii.edu.au/ – 2 or 2.2%

3. 3. Curia at http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/j_6/en/ – 2 or 2.2%

4. 4. FLAG Foreign Law Guide at http://193.62.18.232/dbtw-wpd/textbase/collsearch.htm – 2 or 2.2%

5. 5. Flare Index to Treaties at http://193.62.18.232/dbtw-wpd/textbase/treatysearch.htm – 2 or 2.2%

6. 6. Globalex at http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/ - 2 or 2.2%

7. 7. Institute of Advanced legal Studies (IALS) at http://ials.sas.ac.uk/ – 2 or 2.2%

8. 8. Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales (ICLR) at http://www.iclr.co.uk/ – 2 or 2.2%

9. 9. US Department of Justice at Justice.gov – 2 or 2.2%

10. 10. Law Commission http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/ – 2 or 2.2%

11. 11. University of Kent's Lawlinks at https:// www.kent.ac.uk/library/subjects/lawlinks/ – 2 or 2.2%

The following free unique websites were mentioned by one respondent only:

• • Inner Temple Library's Access to Law - https:// www.accesstolaw.com/

• • CANLII: the Canadian Legal Information Institute – https://www.canlii.org/en/

• • UK Government's digital service at https:// www.gov.uk/

• • The Directory of Open Access Journals at https://doaj.org/

• • IALS Library's internet portal for law (Eagle-i) at http://ials.sas.ac.uk/eaglei/project/eiproject.htm

• • European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) at http://www.echr.coe.int/

• • EISIL at http://www.eisil.org/

• • Family Law Week at http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/

• • Irish Information Initiative (IRLII) at http://www.ucc.ie/law/newirlii/index.php

• • Land Registry at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land-registry

• • OSCOLA tutorial @ Cardiff University at http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/insrv/resources/guides/law023.pdf

• • Scottish Law Commission at http://www.scotlawcom.gov.uk/

• • UK Supreme Court at https://www.supremecourt.uk/

• • SWARB at http://swarb.co.uk/

• • UN-OHCHR at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Pages/Home.aspx

• • UK Government statistics at www.gov.uk/government/statistics

• • The Guardian newspaper at www.theguardian.com/law

• • Delia Venables website at www.venables.co.uk

10. MOST POPULAR LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM SUPPLIERS

For the second time we asked respondents to provide us with the supplier and product names of their library management system in order to establish which are the most popular library management system suppliers used by academic law libraries in the UK and Ireland. Eighty six or 93% of respondents provided this information. All the mentioned systems and suppliers are displayed in the graph below, and Ex Libris (offering products such as Alma. Aleph and Voyager) was the most popular supplier.

Graph 4:

Top library management system suppliers.

The top library management system suppliers are listed below in descending order of popularity:

1. 1. Ex Libris: Alma (17), Aleph (16) and Voyager (6)

   Mentioned by 39 respondents.

2. 2. Capita: including Talis and Alto

   Mentioned by 18 respondents.

3. 3. Innovative Interfaces Inc.: Sierra (8) and Millennium (7)

   Mentioned by 15 respondents.

4. 4. SirisDynix: including Horizon and Symphony

   Mentioned by 9 respondents.

A further five library management system products were mentioned by one respondent each: Enterprise; Heritage CIRQA; Kon via PTFS; Kuali Ole; Summon.

Three respondents also reported using their library management system alongside the Primo (Ex Libris) product for “resource discovery”.

11. EXPENDITURE

Eighty seven of the 93 libraries (or 94% of respondents) were able to provide total expenditure figures for 2014/2015. Those respondents who did not respond either could not disaggregate law expenditure from other subjects or were not prepared to provide the information.

12. SOURCES OF INCOME

Eighty seven (2014: 78) respondents gave details of the source of the funds from which law material expenditure was met.

The greatest proportion of acquisitions was funded from general library funds, and all but 4 institutions responding received at least part of their income this way. Using the mean, 81% of old universities', 91% of new universities' and 100% of other institutions' income for law library materials was from general library funds (90%, 95% and 100% last year). When the median is used the figures are 92%, 100% and 100% (2014: 94%, 100% and 100%). The decrease in the mean percentage for old universities indicates a reduced focus on general library funds, and the decrease in the mean percentage and the no change in the median percentage for new universities indicates a slight reduction or at worse no change in focus on general library funds as the main income source on last year.

Law schools contributed to funding the acquisition of law materials in 35 institutions (2014: 30). As has been noted in previous survey reports, a majority of law schools make no such contribution at all (60% this year, 67% in 2014, 61% in 2013, 58% in 2012, 57% in 2011). This fact is reflected in the fact that, only 50% (2014: 44%) of old university law schools, 28% (2014: 23%) of new university law schools and 0% (2014: 0%) of other institutions' schools contributed something.

Of the law schools that contributed, the amount ranged from £2,500 to £254,951 (2014: £491 to £228,415). The median contribution was £14,576, a decrease of 0.49% on last year. The mean was £43,378, up 55% on last year.

For the libraries that received funds from the law school, these funds represented a mean of 24% of the total income for the purchase of law materials, with a median of 14% (18% and 13% last year). This year the mean percentage contributions by law schools based in old and new universities widened to 8.5% with new universities contributing a higher mean percentage than old universities. Of the old university law schools who contributed anything, the mean contribution represented 20.5% of the funds for library materials (2014: 19%), while new university law schools contributed more at 29% (2014: 18%). No ‘other’ institutions received funds from the law school (2014: 0%).

In the old universities, median law school funding for law materials was £13,003, down 13.03% on last year. The mean was £39,379, up by 22% on last year. In new universities the comparative figures were a median of £22,448, up by 75% on last year and a mean of £50,145 up by 161% on 2014.

In summary for law school contributions: as usual well over half of all law schools (60%) make no contribution to funding the acquisition of law materials. However there was an increase in the old University law schools' average contribution (at 20.5%) to the total funds for library materials and an increase in the new university law school's average contribution (at 29%) to the total funds for library materials.

Ten institutions (2014: 6) reported receiving income from other university budgets for law materials. For these 9 old universities, 1 new universities and 0 other institutions, the amount of income from these sources ranged from £2,500 to £291,326 (2014: £7,457 to £119,664).

One respondent reported funding from user charging (2014: 0).

Finally, 2 institutions (2014: 2) reported receiving financial contributions towards law materials from outside bodies. The sums ranged from £27,582 to £93,479 (2014: £51,197 to £79,700), with a median income of £60,531 (2014: £65,448) and a mean income of £60,531 (2014: £65,448). These were both old universities.

13. STAFFING

The responses to the questions on staffing provide a picture of the number and qualifications of library staff in academic law libraries. The definition of law library staff provided in the questionnaire was the same as for the previous surveys. To be included in the survey, library staff were to spend 50% or more of their working time on the care and servicing of the law collection.

Thirteen (or 14%) of the 93 responding institutions had no staff which met this criterion (2014: 13 or 14%). Of these, 8 (2014: 9) were old universities and 5 (2014: 4) were new universities. In most instances respondents mentioned that law was just one of a number of subjects for which a team of librarians was responsible, but no one spent the requisite 50% or more of their time on law alone, or that their responsibilities were diversifying into library-wide activities.

For the 80 respondents (2013: 78) with staff who met the criterion, the full-time equivalent (FTE) number of staff ranged from 0.25 to 25.10 (2014: 0.20 to 23.25) with a median of 1.0 (2014: 1.0) and a mean of 2.75 (2014: 2.86). 36.25% (2014: 38.5%) had exactly one FTE member of law library staff.

As in previous surveys, old universities ranged most widely in the number of law library staff and 22.2% had four or more FTE (2014: 25%), compared to only 9.76% of new universities (2014: 10.3%).

The median for old universities' FTE law library staffing was 1.0 (2014: 1.0) with a mean of 3.45 (2014: 3.46). The median for new universities was 1.0 (2014: 1.0) and the mean was 2.25 (2014: 2.37). The other institutions were varied in their staffing levels, from 1 to 2 FTE (2014: 1 to 4).

The staffing figures therefore portray a very slightly worse picture for old and new universities than last year. The overall mean number of staff decreased from 2.86 FTE in 2014 to 2.75 FTE in 2015, the mean number of staff for old universities decreased from 3.46 FTE to 3.45 FTE, and the mean number of staff in new universities decreased from 2.37 FTE to 2.25 FTE.

Respondents were asked for the FTE number of staff in professional, clerical and other posts.

14. LEGAL RESEARCH SKILLS INSTRUCTION

User training in law libraries is investigated by this survey every other year. Legal research skills training is defined for the survey in terms of instruction, for example, in how to understand legal abbreviations and in the use of particular law publications or databases. It is not concerned with induction tours, basic introductions to the library or the library catalogue. Eighty eight of the 93 respondents (2013: 93) respondents completed this part of the questionnaire this year, and all of them confirmed that they provided some form of legal research skills training.

15. OVERSEAS LINKS

At the request of BIALL, questions were asked for the fourth time to explore whether institutions provided law courses overseas and, if so, the nature of the support the UK-based library and information service was required to provide to the overseas organisation and its students.

Of the 89 institutions which responded, 22 or 25% (2013: 20 or 21.5%) did provide law courses overseas, either by means of a partnership with an overseas institution or by franchise. They were 6 old universities (2013: 8) and 16 new universities (2013: 12). The courses offered by respondents were located in 23 countries (2013: 19). The following countries were mentioned: France, Greece and Hong Kong (4 respondents each); China, Cyprus, Mauritius and Spain (2 respondents each); Australia, Bangladesh, Germany, Ghana, Guernsey, Ireland, Netherlands, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Trinidad, USA, Uzbekistan and Vietnam (all one each).

None of the institutions aimed their courses at pre-degree level (2013: 0). Fourteen focused on undergraduate courses (2013: 13) and 13 on postgraduate level courses (2013: 9) and 1 specifically at PhD level courses (2013: 1).

The most frequent type of support provided by library and information staff was providing email support for overseas registered students in finding resources (11 respondents. 2013: 11), providing access to new electronic resources (9 respondents. 2013: 7), providing technical assistance to overseas library and information staff (8 respondents. 2013: 7), creating lists of materials to be purchased by the overseas institution (5 respondents. 2013: 6), purchasing and shipping out new print materials (5 respondents. 2013: 2) and setting up a subscription to new electronic materials (4 respondents. 2013: 3).

Other forms of support included production of online guides and video tutorials on legal research skills, onsite library resource training, online course-specific training materials, telephone support and providing academic skills via online means. Six institutions provided no support at all (2013: 7).

16. OTHER ACTIVITIES

For the second time, the survey questionnaire asked respondents about the contribution of their library staff to other law library activities such as creating web subject and research guides; providing content for law library web pages, social networking sites and web portals or gateways; and writing published articles. Eighty nine respondents answered the questions in this final section (2013: 93).

The following graph compares these five other activities undertaken by law library staff in old and new universities.

Graph 6:

Other activities undertaken by law library staff.