This much-expanded second edition of the helpful and practical handbook on legal information management is very welcome and should be an essential acquisition for any law library seeking to develop their specialist staff and benchmark and improve their services and collections.
The well-received first edition was published in 2006 in what was, in retrospect, a very different world without our reliance on social media tools, clouds and smartphones. The new edition continues to be a useful practical reference tool for law library managers and staff. However this new edition so confidently embraces the myriad changes in the role of law librarians and in law library services in the intervening years that it has also produced what amounts to be a comprehensive survey of law librarianship in 2014.
The handbook concentrates on the law in England and Wales. However, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are also covered. We benefit greatly from the fact that many of the original distinguished contributors have been persuaded by the editors to review and completely update their original chapters either on their own or with a new co-contributor. For example we have Jules Winterton's scene setting survey on law libraries and their users, Guy Holborn's chapter on sources of legal information and their organization, Peter Clinch's chapter on legal research – techniques and tips, Loyita Worley and Jacky Berry's chapter on managing legal information professionals and Ann Hemming's chapter on Knowledge Management. In addition, where topics have developed significantly the original chapters have been expanded and split into several sub-sections. For example, the useful chapter on legal technologies now covers current awareness systems, law firm intranets and Library management systems; the excellent chapter on financial management now includes separate sections on planning and budgeting and negotiating online subscriptions; and the illuminating chapter on collection management now covers cataloguing and classification, developing the collection and managing space, and taxonomies and indexing. Many of these topics have grown in importance for law librarians since 2006, and the editors rightly accord the contributors more space to educate and inform the reader. Other chapters have completely new contributors who have been well chosen for their practical experience and expertise in the topic. For example the updated chapter on copyright and data protection is written by Chris Holland, Copyright Support Officer at UCL and the chapter on e-learning and virtual learning environments is written by Angela Donaldson, law librarian at Nottingham Trent University.
The second edition also contains several chapters on new and stimulating challenges which forward-looking law librarians have been successfully mastering since 2006. In particular we have valuable new chapters on planning a training session, on making the most of social media tools, outsourcing, and the impact of the 2007 Legal Services Act.
Finally, as in the first edition, we have a useful series of short case studies on the different types of law library. These brief introductions give a real flavour of what it is like to actually work in an academic, freelance, government, law firm, solo or professional society law library in 2014.
The editors and contributors of the second edition of this handbook should be warmly congratulated on improving and updating the first edition. The handbook will be hugely helpful and a practical resource for law librarians for years to come. Furthermore, collectively I hope this new edition will also show aspiring and new law librarians that although different than in 2006, law librarianship in 2014 is still an exciting and varied career choice which offers talented librarians numerous opportunities to develop key transferrable skills in a variety of different library environments.
