BIALL Conference 2007
This issue of LIM contains further papers from the Conference in Sheffield. We cover teaching of legal information skills in two papers. Angela Carritt of the Bodleian Law Library recounts her experiences of teaching the Legal Research Skills Programme as a stand-alone skills course. Angela's paper includes the results of some research undertaken by Sandra Meredith on students' expectations of, and experiences with, the course. Secondly we publish a paper by Maria Mawson, Natasha Semmens and Mark Taylor of Sheffield University on their experiences in designing a new undergraduate foundation module in law. Finally on this topic, we have a contribution from Sarah Spells, who has written up the results of her MA research into which resources, both electronic and hard copy, students on the Legal Practice Course and Bar Vocational Course prefer to use.
Our other Conference Papers include James Mullan's presentation on the implementation of LawPort at CMS Cameron McKenna with all its trials, tribulations and ultimate successes, and Penny Bailey writing about collection development for knowledge management.
BIALL/SLS Academic Law Library Survey 2005/2006
The results of this survey were written up in the Autumn Issue (Vol.7, No.3 p.184) by Peter Clinch. We have subsequently received the following information from him:
“I regret that an error has crept into the presentation of the Survey report. The files of the two graphs are for the wrong year and do not match the text of the report. I enclose two correct files….I sincerely apologise for the error which is entirely my fault.”
The correct graphs appear at page 304 of this issue.
Search
We cover the topical and difficult subject of searching in this issue with three articles from the IT side of our profession. The articles are all written by IT practitioners. We do not regard them as advertorials, but hope that they contribute some useful insights into the debates currently being held around the relative merits and disadvantages of federated versus enterprise versus integrated search. Chris Wallis writes about Microsoft Sharepoint; Rob Martin writes about integrated search strategies and the Solcara software and Paul Billingham and Phil Ayton write about the search system known as conceptSearching, which is an in-house searching facility which they have developed. This is an area which is being much discussed within our profession at present and we hope to publish further material on this topic in forthcoming issues.
Current topics
We are grateful to Carol Tullo, the Queen's Printer, for explaining the possibilities offered by the recent European legislation on re-use of public sector information and, in an allied theme, Stella Dextre Clarke updates us on developments in the field of metadata for both government and local authority information – another field in which we should be taking the lead!
I received an unexpected letter from Lesley Dingle at the Squire Law Library about her project to set up an electronic archive at Cambridge University for eminent scholars of the Law School, and was fascinated to read about the long and distinguished career of Sir Derek Bowett, the leading international lawyer. Lesley has edited down the extensive material she has gathered together on his life and work and the result is a very interesting insight into the life and thoughts of a famous lawyer, whose career spanned some of the most momentous international events of the twentieth century. To add a light touch, some of Sir Derek's views on his fellow eminent lawyers are included in the article and they make illuminating reading! We hope that Lesley will consider publishing some of her future biographical histories in Legal Information Management.
From Our Own Correspondent
In this issue, our own correspondent has actually spent quality time in this country. Melinda Renner recently came to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies as a visiting fellow under the NELLCO (New England Law Library Consortium Scheme) and she has written an entertaining report of her experiences.
We are also grateful to Sue Woodman, the Past President of the Australian Law Librarians Association, for her letter from down under reporting on their activities.
Checklist
Michael Oberwarth, winner of the Inaugural Lexis/Nexis BIALL award for small law firm librarian, and also our Book Review Editor, nobly stepped into the breach at very short notice to write a most useful Checklist on setting up a library and information service in a law firm from scratch. His article is packed with helpful hints and will doubtless become an indespensible checklist for all new law firm librarians.
