SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS

• • The response rate was 80.36% (section 3);

• • There was a marked increase in universities enrolling PhD and MPhil students, with 100% of old universities and 83% of new universities enrolling these type of students (section 5);

• • Like last time, 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. However, there was still some fluidity in the range of subscriptions held, for 18% of respondents were considering cancelling a subscription to an electronic source before the end of July 2018 whilst only 12% 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 continues to be 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 2.13% across all respondents on the level in 2016. Old universities reported a 5.99% increase in mean expenditure on 2016, whilst new universities reported a 9.29% decrease in mean expenditure on 2016 (section 11.1);

• • This year the mean spend per student at new universities continues to be slightly higher than the mean spend per student at old universities. Mean law materials expenditure per student in new universities was £220, whereas in old universities it was £219. 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 reduced to 22%, serials continued its downward trend to its lowest ever percentage of 35% and databases increased by 3% to 43% (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);

• • 66% of all law schools made no contribution at all to funding the acquisition of law materials. Moreover, of those law schools that did contribute, they appeared to do so less generously with the mean amount contributed by law schools decreasing by 41% on last year (section 12);

• • For the first time we asked if it would be useful to revise and update the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) Statement of Standards (2009) [http://www.legalscholars.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/SLS-Library-for-a-Modern-Law-School-Statement-2009.pdf]. 83% of those respondents who answered this question agreed that the standards should be revised, whilst 17% replied, “don't know”. Nobody disagreed (section 13);

• • We also asked if it would be useful to revise and update the indicative list of resources which were included as an appendix to the 2009 standards. 84% of those respondents who answered this question agreed, whilst 12.5% replied “don't know”. Two respondents (or 3.5%) said “no” to this question (section 13);

• • A higher percentage (18%) 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 14);

• • Overall average staffing numbers decreased in old universities to 3.3 FTE and decreased in new universities to 1.5 FTE (section 14);

• • 82% of respondents had at least one member of law library staff who had a LIS qualification, although for 25 institutions this was less than one full-time member of staff (section 14.4);

• • As found in previous surveys, library staff with law qualifications were much more common in old universities (section 14.4);

• • Law librarians in almost all responding institutions continued to be involved in providing legal research skills training. In 75% of institutions it was in partnership with law school lecturers and in half of the institutions in a programme involving free external trainers supplied by the major database providers (section 15.1);

• • Librarians were involved in training for all types of course though not all their contributions were integrated with the law teaching curriculum (section 15.3);

• • In general, the average amount of teaching received by an undergraduate, a postgraduate professional and a taught postgraduate has increased. However, a decrease in the average amount is noted for research postgraduates (section 15.4);

• • On most measures, librarians in both old and new universities appear to be spending slightly less time teaching than previously (section 15.5);

• • Across all categories of student, large group lecture sessions were the most popular delivery method (section 15.6);

• • The overall number of institutions integrating information literacy principles within the law undergraduate programme decreased (section 15.7);

• • 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 16);

• • The most popular other activities in both old and new universities continued 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 continued to be the least popular other activity (section 17).

3. RESPONSE RATES

This year 90 forms were returned from 112 libraries representing a response rate of 80.36%, a decrease on last year's record of 86.61%. 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 2016/2017 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

Thirty-nine old universities responded (43 last year), as did 48 new universities (51 last year) and 3 other institutions (3 last year). The response profile has therefore changed slightly, with four fewer results for old universities and three fewer 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.

83 out of the total of 90 respondents gave figures for student numbers, ranging from 50 to 7,000 (50 to 12,047 in 2016). The median number of law students was 666 (643 in 2016) and the mean number was 833 (937 in 2016), the mean figure has therefore decreased significantly year-on-year.

Respondents in old universities reported student numbers between 50 and 2,100 (50 and 2,091 last year), with a mean of 897 (883 last year) and a median of 834 (801 last year).

In new universities, the range was 128 to 7,000 (100 to 12,047 last year), with a mean of 809 (1,033 last year) and a median of 540 (505 last year).

Among the 3 other institutions, the range was 90 to 150 (64 to 202 in 2016). The mean was 120 (124 in 2016) and the median was 120 (106 in 2016).

An upward trend is evident in the average number of students attending responding old universities in 2016/17 as compared with the previous year. Whilst a downward trend is evident in the average number of students attending responding new universities in 2016/17 as compared with the previous year.

89 or 99% of respondents (96 or 99% in 2016) offered an exempting undergraduate law degree.

25 or 28% of respondents (31 or 32% in 2016) 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 21% of old university respondents, 55% of new universities and 100% of other institutions.

21 or 23% (22 or 23% in 2016) of respondents provided courses leading to other law professional awards, such as the CPE or Chartered Institute of Legal Executives qualification. 18% of old universities, 27% 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. 80 or 89% (86 or 89% in 2016) of institutions ran these postgraduate courses, including 100% of old and 85% of new universities and 0% other institutions. The movements in the percentages of respondents offering particular courses this year are 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 79 or 88% (79 or 81% in 2016) of institutions indicated that they did. 100% of old universities, 83% 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 continues to be 100% and the trend is up again for the new universities at 83% (73% in 2016 and 80% in 2015, 72% in 2014 and 66% in 2013).

Graph 1.

Location of the law library.

6. LOCATION OF THE LAW LIBRARY

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

As the above pie chart demonstrates, across all respondents:

• • 21% had a single law library in a location separated from other subject collections (23% in 2016). Of these, there were 12 (2016: 12) old universities, 7 (2016: 10) new and 0 (2016: 0) other institutions.

• • 43% had a law collection not so separated but shelved so as to form a single identifiable unit (37% in 2016). These included 15 (2016: 15) old universities, 23 (2016: 20) new and 1 (2016: 1) other institution.

• • 16% had several law collections each in a different location (20% in 2016). These included 6 (2016: 8) old, 8 (2016: 11) new universities and 0 (2016: 0) other institutions.

• • 20% had a law collection dispersed wholly or partly among other subject collections (20% in 2016). Of these, 6 (2016: 8) were old universities, 10 (2016: 10) were new universities and 2 (2016: 2) other institutions.

31% (2016: 28%) of old universities responding had a single and separate law library, while 15% (2014: 20%) of new universities and 0% (2016: 0%) of other institutions had a single and separate law library.

39% (2016: 35%) 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 eight percent (2016: 39%) of new universities described their law collection in a similar way, and 33% (2016: 33%) of other responding institutions.

15% (2016: 19%) of old universities had several law collections, each in a different location, but 17% (2016: 22%) of new universities and no other institutions (0%) reported several collections (2016: 0%).

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 Athens for LLM students.

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.

15% of old universities, 20% 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 20% overall: in detail, in 2016, 18% of old, 19% of new and 66.7% of other institutions had dispersed collections.

To conclude, the overall percentage of dispersed collections remains the same at 20% for both this year and last year.

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 2016/2017. The results below therefore show the position in February 2018.

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, 12% of respondents (9% last year) were planning new subscriptions before the end of July 2018. However on the negative side, 18% (14% last year) 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 2018 Westlaw UK was taken by 90 respondents (100%) and Lexis®Library was taken by 88 of respondents (98%). Last year Westlaw UK was also taken by 100% of respondents and Lexis®Library was taken by 99%. HeinOnline, kept the third position it first gained in 2007 being taken by 73 or 81% of respondents (last year: 81%). Jordan's Family Law Online remained in fourth place with 58% (65% last year).

Of the other popular databases mentioned by respondents, Lawtel UK remained in fifth place with 34% of respondents (35% last year), i-law moved up to sixth place with 31% of respondents (32% last year) and the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law moved up to seventh place with 28% of respondents (28% last year). JustCite was in eighth place with 27% (34% last year), Practical Law was in ninth place with 18% (13% last year) and Kluwer Arbitration was tenth with 13% (15% last year).

Looking at the returns for Westlaw in more detail, no new subscriptions were planned, although one respondent reported they were thinking about a new subscription to Westlaw IE and one respondent reported they were thinking about a new subscription to “a new Westlaw platform”. One respondent reported that they already subscribed to Westlaw China, one reported they already subscribed to Westlaw e-books, four reported that they already subscribed to IDS Employment and one reported they already subscribed to Westlaw Australia.

71 respondents or 79% subscribed to Westlaw International (79% last year). Six respondents subscribed to Westlaw IE (Irish Law). 3 were based in the Irish Republic, 1 from Northern Ireland and 2 from the UK mainland.

Respondents were asked to indicate the subscriptions they took to particular parts of the Lexis®Library product. One respondent reported that they were planning a new subscription to Lexis PSL, but two respondents reported that they were planning to cancel their subscription to Lexis PSL.

The Journals module and the UK cases module were the most popular products, both taken by 91% of respondents. The UK legislation module was taken by 90% of respondents, Halsbury's Laws was taken by 82% of respondents and UK newspapers on Lexis by 68%. The International Materials module was taken by 66% of respondents and the Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents in electronic format was taken by 53%. 13 respondents or 14% took Lexis PSL.

28 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 respondents: Commonwealth Collection, Current Awareness, Harvey's, Legal Alerter, Lexis Smart Forms, “Practice Area”, Practitioner Package, Scots Law Pack, Valentines on Northern Ireland law, Local Government, Jordan's Family Law and “Various loosleafs”.

Two respondents stated that they subscribed to LexisNexis®Juris Classeur and two respondents took Lexis Middle East Law as standalone products.

HeinOnline retained its third position with the same percentage as last year, being taken by 73 or 81% of respondents (last year: 81%). Furthermore one respondent reported that they were planning to subscribe to the HeinOnline Academic Core module and one reported they were planning to subscribe to HeinOnline US Congressional Documents module.

Jordan's Family Law Online remained in fourth place with 52 respondents or 58% (65% last year). In addition two respondents reported plans to cancel their existing direct subscription because they wanted to access Jordan's via Lexis®Library in future. (Just to note that Jordan's Family Law Online was acquired by Lexis®Library in January 2016. The Jordan's Family Law Online platform was then switched off in December 2017 and the content is now only accessible via Lexis®Library. The changeover happened around the same time as the survey questionnaire was being completed so this may have affected the results).

Lawtel UK remained in fifth place with 34% of respondents (35% last year). One respondent also reported “likely” plans to cancel their Lawtel UK subscription because of low usage and anticipated budget restrictions.

i-law moved up to sixth place with 31% of respondents (32% last year). In addition one respondent had plans to subscribe to i-law: Maritime and Commercial, whilst one respondent had plans to cancel an existing subscription to i-law: Insurance and Reinsurance.

The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law moved up to seventh place with 28% of respondents (28% last year). JustCite was in eighth place with 27% (34% last year). In addition, several respondents reported that they were considering transferring from JustCite to JustisOne UK. Practical Law was in ninth place with 18% (13% last year) and Kluwer Arbitration was tenth with 13% (15% last year).

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 (7 respondents), OGEL – Oil, Gas and Energy Law (6 respondents each); Beck Online, Kluwer Law International and Oxford Public International Law (5 respondents each); and Hague Academy Collected Courses, Investment Arbitration Reporter and WorldTradeLaw.net (4 respondents each). Dalloz.fr; Foreign Law Guide, IBFD, Investor-State Law Guide, Kemp on Lawtel, LLMC Digital, Manupatra, PKULaw and Trade Law Guide (3 respondents each).

In total 21 respondents (or 23%) subscribed to Justis products other than Justcite. Although not all respondents gave full details of their Justis subscriptions the following limited information was reported: 6 respondents subscribed to JustisOne, 4 respondents subscribed to International Law Reports, 3 subscribed to UK legislation, 3 subscribed to Irish Reports and 2 to Irish Legislation. One respondent each subscribed to BLISS, Caribbean Law Reports, OPIL, Parliament, Singapore Law Reports and Times Law Reports.

The median number of legal database subscriptions taken in responding libraries in February 2018 was 6 (February 2017: 6). The numbers of legal databases offered by institutions ranged from 1 to 57 (1 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. Seventy nine respondents (88%) noted other subscription databases which contribute significantly to the teaching and research work of their law school. This is the same percentage of respondents as last year.

JSTOR was again the most widely used general database with 61 or 68% of respondents (67% last year). House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP) was mentioned by 56 or 62% of respondents (63% last year) and gained second place. Third was EBSCO Business Source with 52 or 58% (58% last year). Fourth was ISI Web of Science with 45 or 50% of respondents (55% last year). Fifth was EBSCO Academic with 29 or 32% of respondents (31% last year) and joint sixth was ASSIA and Criminal Justice Abstracts with 27 or 30% of respondents a piece (30% and 28% respectively last year). Joint eighth was SCOPUS and Proquest with 13 or 14% of respondents a piece.

The following non-law databases were each used by 3 respondents: Science Direct, IBSS and Project Muse. The following databases were each used by 2 respondents: ABI Inform, Box of Broadcasts, FT.com, Public Information Online and Sage Research Methods. A further 38 non-law databases were each used by only one respondent.

By February 2018, 57 or 63% of respondents used a web-based combined newspaper database to access the full range of newspapers (64% last year), 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 32 respondents (30 last year) and Proquest with 17 respondents (17 last year). Gale NewsVault was taken by 5 respondents (6 last year). Factiva was taken by 4 respondents (5 last year) and Gale Infotrack was taken by 3 respondents (2 last year). Newsbank, UK Press Online, European Newsstream and Times Digital Archive were taken by 2 respondents each. The following databases were mentioned once-a-piece: Access World News; British newspapers archive; International Newsstream and International Newsstand. 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 third 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.

Seventy seven or 86% 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.

52 or 58% of respondents (70% in 2015)

2. EUR-Lex at www.eur-lex.europa.eu/

27 or 30% (25% in 2015)

= 3. www.legislation.gov.uk/

24 or 27% (31% in 2015)

= 3. Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations at www.legalabbrevs.cardiff.ac.uk/

24 or 27% (17% in 2015)

5. www.parliament.uk (including Hansard)

13 or 14% (11% in 2015)

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

6 or 7% [5%]

7. WorldLII or World Legal Information Institute at www.worldlii.org/

5 or 6% (11% in 2015)

= 8. City University's Lawbore at http://lawbore.net/

4 or 4% (4% in 2015)

= 8. OSCOLA at https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/publications/oscola

4 or 4% (4% in 2015)

= 10. IALS - Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at ials@sas.ac.uk

3 or 3% (2% in 2015)

= 10. EUROPA – EU website at www.europa.eu/

3 or 3% (8% in 2015)

The following free websites were mentioned by 2 respondents:

1. 1. Scottish Courts Website at https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/

2. 2. Courts Service, Ireland at Courts.ie

3. 3. UK Government at Gov.uk

4. 4. US Department of Justice at Justice.gov

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

• • IALS Current Legal research Topics database - CLRT at https://ials.sas.ac.uk/clrt-current-legal-research-topics-database

• • Crown Prosecution Service at https://www.cps.gov.uk/

• • Court of Justice of the EU – Curia at https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/j_6/en/

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

• • EISIL at http://www.eisil.org/

• • Federal Register of Legislation (AU) at https://www.legislation.gov.au/

• • FLARE Index to Treaties at https://ials.sas.ac.uk/digital/ials-digital-resources/flare-index-treaties

• • Globalex at http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex//index.html

• • HM Courts & Tribunals service at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-courts-and-tribunals-service

• • International Court of Justice website at http://www.icj-cij.org/en

• • Inner Temple Library at https://www.innertemplelibrary.org.uk/

• • IrLII at: https://www.ucc.ie/academic/law/irlii/index.php

• • Lexology at https://www.lexology.com/

• • National Archives at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

• • Houses of the Oireachtas website at https://www.oireachtas.ie/

• • Prisons Reform Trust at http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/

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

• • Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) at http://www.legalscholars.ac.uk/

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

• • UN website at http://www.un.org/en/index.html

• • United National Treaty Series at https://treaties.un.org/pages/AdvanceSearch.aspx?tab=UNTS&clang=_en

• • Upper Tribunal (Immigration & Asylum Chamber) Decisions at https://tribunalsdecisions.service.gov.uk/utiac

• • World Trade Organisation – WTO at https://www.wto.org/

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

10. MOST POPULAR LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM SUPPLIERS

For the third 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 seven or 97% of respondents provided this information. All the mentioned systems and suppliers are displayed in the graph below, and Ex Libris (offering products such as Ex Libris - 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. Ex Libris - Alma (27), Aleph (8) and Voyager (1)

Mentioned by 36 respondents (39 in 2015).

2. Innovative Interfaces Inc.: Sierra (13) and Millennium (5)

Mentioned by 18 respondents (15 in 2015).

3. Capita: including Talis and Alto

Mentioned by 12 respondents (18 in 2015).

4. Siris Dynix: including Horizon and Symphony

Mentioned by 11 respondents (9 in 2015).

5. Koha

Mentioned by 4 respondents.

A further 6 library management system products were mentioned by one respondent each: Ebsco EDS; Heritage; Info V-Smart; Kuali Ole; Soprana; Worldshare (OCLC).

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

11. EXPENDITURE

78 of the 90 libraries (or 87% of respondents) were able to provide total expenditure figures for 2016/2017. Those respondents who did not respond either could not disaggregate law expenditure from other subjects or were not prepared to provide the information.

11.3 Serials expenditure

70 respondents who gave any financial figures were able to provide a figure for their spending on serials, 4 fewer than last year. The questionnaire defined serials as law journals, statutes, law reports and loose-leaf updates.

As a mean, serials accounted for 35% of total law materials expenditure (2016: 37%). The proportion of expenditure given to serials ranged from 6% to 71% with a median of 35% (2016: 35%). Overall, serials expenditure ranged from £1,529 to £540,000, with a median of £42,829 and a mean of £64,402.

Analysed by type of institution the figures were:

Old universities: 29 responses (2016: 32)

Range £8,625 to £540,000; median £57,386, down 18% on last year; mean £95,003, down by 5.99% on last year. Mean of 39% of total law material expenditure (2016: 41%).

New universities: 39 responses (2016: 39)

Range £1,529 to £175,000; median £29,541, down 1.54% on last year; mean £44,288, down 17% on last year. Mean of 32% total law material expenditure (2016: 33%).

Graph 5.

Library materials expenditure per student.

Other institutions: 2 responses (2016: 3)

The range, median and mean figures are not very useful because of the tiny sample. Mean of 45% of total law material expenditure (2016: 42%).

The percentage of total law expenditure devoted to serials has continued to fall for both old and new universities. Please note that these figures may be partly a reflection of the changing pool of survey respondents.

12. SOURCES OF INCOME

77 (2016: 84) 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, with all responding institutions receiving at least part of their income this way. Using the mean, 87% of old universities’, 97% of new universities’ and 100% of other institutions’ income for law library materials was from general library funds (90%, 94% and 100% last year). When the median is used the figures are 96%, 100% and 100% (2016: 100%, 100% and 100%). The decrease in the mean percentage for old universities indicates a reduced focus on general library funds.

Law schools contributed to funding the acquisition of law materials in 26 institutions (2016: 26). As has been noted in previous survey reports, a majority of law schools make no such contribution at all (66% this year, 69% in 2016). This conclusion is reflected in the fact that, only 56% (2016: 45%) of old university law schools, 19% (2016: 21%) of new university law schools and 0% (2016: 0%) of other institutions’ schools contributed something.

Of the law schools that contributed, the amount ranged from £1,136 to £164,982 (2016: £3,952 to £372,650). The median contribution was £14,691, a decrease of 21% on last year. The mean was £26,678, down 41% on last year.

For the libraries that received funds from the law school, these funds represented a mean of 15% of the total income for the purchase of law materials, with a median of 8% (26% and 18% last year). This year the mean percentage contributions by law schools based in old and new universities narrowed although new universities continued to contribute a higher mean percentage than old universities.

In the old universities, median law school funding for law materials was £16,596, down 3% on last year. The mean was £29,763, down by 46% on last year. In new universities the comparative figures were a median of £7,946, down by 60% on last year and a mean of £13,238 down by 50% on 2016.

In summary for law school contributions: two-thirds of all law schools (66%) made no contribution to funding the acquisition of law materials. Moreover there was a decrease in the old University law schools’ average contribution to the total funds for library materials and a decrease in the new university law school's average contribution to the total funds for library materials.

Seven institutions (2016: 7) reported receiving income from other university budgets for law materials. For these 6 old universities, 1 new universities and 0 other institutions, the amount of income from these sources ranged from £5,000 to £213,869 (2016: £4,250 to £123,831).

No respondents reported funding from user charging (2016: 1).

Finally, 2 institutions (2016: 2) reported receiving financial contributions towards law materials from outside bodies. The sums ranged from £18,500 to £131,545 (2016: £27,100 to £127,670), with a median income of £75,023 (2016: £77,385) and a mean income of £75.023 (2016: £77,385). These were both old universities.

13. SOCIETY OF LEGAL SCHOLARS (SLS) STATEMENT OF STANDARDS

For the first time we asked if it would be useful to revise and update the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) Statement of Standards (2009) [http://www.legalscholars.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/SLS-Library-for-a-Modern-Law-School-Statement-2009.pdf]. 64 respondents (71%) answered this question, with 53 (or 83%) of these agreeing that the standards should be revised. 11 respondents (or 17%) replied, “don't know” and nobody said “no” to this question.

We also asked if it would be useful to revise and update the indicative list of resources which were included as an appendix to the 2009 standards. 54 (or 84%) of respondents agreed, whilst 8 (or 12.5%) replied “don't know”. Two respondents (or 3.5%) said “no” to this question.

14. 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.

16 (or 18%) of the 90 responding institutions had no staff which met this criterion (2016: 17 or 17.5%). Of these, 7 (2016: 7) were old universities and 9 (2016: 10) 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 74 respondents (2016: 80) with staff who met the criterion, the full-time equivalent (FTE) number of staff ranged from 0.15 to 22.37 (2016: 0.15 to 22.60) with a median of 1.0 (2016: 1.0) and a mean of 2.25 (2016: 2.94). 40.5% (2016: 37.5%) 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 18.75% had four or more FTE (2016: 22.78%), compared to only 5.13% of new universities (2016: 12.2%).

The median for old universities’ FTE law library staffing was 1.0 (2016: 1.5) with a mean of 3.3 (2016: 3.6). The median for new universities was 1.0 (2016: 1.0) and the mean was 1.5 (2016: 2.52). The other institutions were varied in their staffing levels, from 0.5 to 1 FTE (2016: 0.5 to 1).

In summary the staffing figures therefore portray a worse picture for old and new universities than last year. The overall mean number of staff decreased from 2.94 FTE in 2016 to 2.25 FTE in 2017, the mean number of staff for old universities decreased from 3.6 FTE to 3.3 FTE, and the mean number of staff in new universities decreased from 2.52 FTE to 1.5 FTE.

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

15. 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 90 respondents (2015: 88) respondents completed this part of the questionnaire this year, and all of them confirmed that they provided some form of legal research skills training.

15.2 For which courses is instruction provided?

Respondents indicated for which courses legal research skills instruction was provided by library staff.

In most responding institutions, law library staff were involved in legal research skills instruction for all types of users. The proportion of institutions where library staff were involved in legal research skills instruction for undergraduates was the same as in 2015 at 92% and there was also an increase to 94% in the proportion involved in postgraduate vocational courses. Involvement with postgraduate taught courses decreased slightly to 89% and involvement with training research postgraduates decreased to 67%.

15.3 Integration with the teaching curriculum

Respondents were asked in which courses was the library's contribution to legal research skills instruction timetabled and incorporated within the curriculum of study.

The disappointing news is that percentage levels of integration of the library's contribution have decreased for all types of courses on the 2015 levels.

16. OVERSEAS LINKS

At the request of BIALL, questions were asked for the fifth 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 31 or 35% (2015: 22 or 25%) did provide law courses overseas, either by means of a partnership with an overseas institution or by franchise. They were 9 old universities (2015: 6) and 22 new universities (2015: 16). The courses offered by respondents were located in 33 countries (2015: 23): The following countries were mentioned: Greece (4 respondents each); China, France, Ghana, Hong Kong, Mauritius, Netherlands and UAE (2 respondents each); Africa (sic), Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Malaysia, Maldives, Norway, Oman, Qatar, Sweden, Uzbekistan and Vietnam (all one each).

None of the institutions aimed their courses at pre-degree level (2015: 0). 22 focused on undergraduate courses (2015: 14) and 14 on postgraduate level courses (2015: 13) and 0 specifically at PhD level courses (2015: 1).

The most frequent type of support provided by library and information staff was providing email support for overseas registered students in finding resources (9 respondents. 2015: 11), providing access to new e-resources (9 respondents. 2015: 9), setting up a subscription to new e-materials (7 respondents. 2015: 4), providing technical assistance to overseas library and information staff (6 respondents. 2015: 8), purchasing and shipping out new print materials (4 respondents. 2015: 5) and creating lists of materials to be purchased by the overseas institution (3 respondents. 2015: 5).

Other forms of support included Skype 1-2-1 training on request, pre-recorded and live online tutorials, cataloguing and processing of library materials, onsite inductions, access to networked resources, front-line library staff in situ and online help pages. 13 institutions provided no support at all (2015: 6).

17. OTHER ACTIVITIES

For the third 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. 89 respondents answered the questions in this final section (2015: 89).